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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 10, 2010David CubillanLazar HaywardBuzz WilliamsNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK Marquette – 57 THE MODERATOR: Any questions for the players, please? Q. What's the difference between the first half and the second half for you guys? LAZAR HAYWARD: I think just in the second half we got a little too stagnant and a little too passive. We weren't really aggressive like we were in the first half. And we definitely have to do a better job of attacking when we have leads instead of being passive. Q. Do you feel like you guys for the first time in a while you guys got a little bit down during that stretch. Do you agree with that? LAZAR HAYWARD: I don't think so. I think we handled it a pretty good. We have to stop digging those holes for ourselves and we have to go and play defense the entire game like we did in the first half. Q. Lazar, you guys probably played as many close games as anybody in the country. You've been in a bunch of close ones. Do you think all that experience of close games will help you guys? LAZAR HAYWARD: I hope so. We're starting to learn how to play in close games. We definitely understand that the value of our possessions are very, very vital for us. And hopefully that will transpire into the NCAA Tournament. . Q. Can you talk about your shot? DAVID CUBILLAN: I ran the play, it was supposed to be Lazar, but they cheated the play and I was wide open. And I just shot it. Made it. Q. You have three seniors on a stage like this, BIG EAST Tournament. Talk about their play. COACH BUZZ WILLIAMS: I just assume they answer all the questions, they're going to say the exact same things I would say and probably say it with better words than I would use. Regardless of locale and no disrespect to the BIG EAST, I'd played with these guys in the street anywhere in the country, and I hope it will last as long as it can last. Whether it's a one-possession game or a ten-possession game, I absolutely love who these guys are as human beings. I think we'll get good players at Marquette. I don't mean that in any egotistical way. I think we'll get good players but I don't know that we'll get as good a person as each of these young men are, coupled with who they are as players. I was just telling Buycks in the locker room. I think Buycks is a really good player. The problem I have is I trust Cuby like I trust my wife. I want him out on the court. Not so he can make a big three, but I know if he can make a big three, he will make a big three. I thought Mo was unbelievable. Maybe as good as he's been in a long time for consecutive minutes in the first half. And again, like always, comes down to the very end. Lazar makes a great play on one end, makes an unbelievable rebound on the other end. Our team expects that of him. The whole thing is our team expects the same from each person because we all know what each person can do. And how I coach and how these guys lead were transparent in that. There's no secrets. I'm telling you the same thing I would tell those guys. They're telling you the same thing they would tell me. And I think that's what makes it so special. That's what makes it so unique. Q. Coach talk about how big it was to get through that first half with (inaudible) -- COACH BUZZ WILLIAMS: It was terrible. It was awful. It didn't contribute anything to the win today. I think that DJO is a guy on our team that can go get a basket. I think he's probably grown more as a player than anybody else on our team. But Mo, everybody knows what Mo is going to do. When he turns it over, everybody is shocked. You know, he played 18 BIG EAST games and he had 17 turnovers. And he and Malik Boothe and No. 31 (Malik) Stith, those are the three littlest guys in the league. Mo turned it over less than one time a game. When he turns it over, everybody is shocked. Cuby is going to play his guts out every possession. Everybody knows what Lazar is going to do. When he makes these, he looks better than he really is. Our team has begun to rely on Jimmy (Butler). It's not just on offense; it's on defense. I think Jimmy is our smartest player. He comprehends things really well. And he does a great job of communicating what every player on our team -- what's up-coming. And we missed that communication just as much as we miss his presence on the floor. And I didn't think we were any good at all in the second half. I don't know how many offensive rebounds they had in the second half, but if it was based only on the second half, they deserved to win the game. Just so happened at the end we were able to make two big plays on both ends. We're not very good without Jimmy. With that being said, I don't think if you remove any player from our depth chart we're any good. Q. What is it about this team St. Johns that makes them tough? COACH BUZZ WILLIAMS: I told Coach Roberts this before the game. I told him this after the game. I was on some big radio show here in town yesterday. I said it after we played at Carnesecca Arena. Coach Roberts doesn't get the credit he's deserving of for how hard his team plays. And not that I'm old, but I always trust our players to tell me the truth about other players. And if you were to ask our players who is the hardest playing team in the league, they would tell you St. John's. I don't think teams play hard just for one another. I think they play hard for one another and for their coach. I think that's what St. John's does. I think that that's what they did yesterday. And I thought they were the hardest playing team today. Q. Coach, I saw after today that 12 of your 19 games now have been decided by three points or less in the league. Is there a moment this year after all those tough losses that you look back now and say that's where we broke through and our confidence really went to another level? COACH BUZZ WILLIAMS: That's a really good question. That's the best question I've been asked in about six weeks. We won 10 out of our last 12 games. That would mean that 9 of those 12 games that you mentioned -- tell me the stat again? Q. Of your 19 games including today, 12 of the 19 have been decided by three points or less. COACH BUZZ WILLIAMS: Our players sit on the back of the plane when we fly and I sit in the front of the plane, it's about the only time I get to sleep. So when we land I turn on my phone and I text Lazar after the Syracuse loss. They whipped us at their place. They beat us by five. I texted him and told him to stay at the back of the plane, keep the guys at the back of the plane. I told those guys, then I said, "We're counted for dead. Nobody believes in you. So the only people that are on this plane are the ones that care. And that genuinely believe that we have a chance." We were 2-5. We won five in a row. Pitt beat us at home. And then I think from that point cumulative all of that we won 10 out of our last 12 games. I don't think that our margin has ever changed. Even when we were getting beat, if you were to talk to any of the Marquette people, it was because I couldn't coach. I couldn't manage the end-of-the-game situations. We didn't practice free-throws. How bad of a coach can you be to not practice free-throws? And we were 2-5. Then since that time, like you said, we've been in one- or two-possession games. And now supposedly sometimes some people think I can't coach because we were in at end of the game. Our players are taking hypnosis so that they can make free throws. And everything has changed. The whole deal is this though, our margin has never changed. We had a lot of change within our team in the first semester, but our margin of error has never changed. And that margin is zero. That's why Lazar said what he said. Every possession is critical for us. I don't know if there was a defining moment. I think that there's several moments. But no moment is any more bigger than another moment. I think there are games that we lost, the lessons that we learned are just as important of the games that we won by one or two possessions as well. Q. During that 2-5 stretch you lost to Villanova by two points twice. How much different a team are you that they'll see tomorrow? COACH BUZZ WILLIAMS: I just think that we played 12 out of our 19 games including those two -- what was the number? Q. Three points or less. COACH BUZZ WILLIAMS: Three points or less. I think Villanova is a Final Four team that returns I believe eight of their last players from last year. They had a top five recruiting class. They have a Final Four head coach early in his career. He'll be a Hall of Fame coach long before he ever comes close to retiring. They have three NBA players on their team for sure. We'll have our hands full. They haven't played since Saturday. And you just saw how hard we had to play just to escape. So we'll have to do the best job we can over the next 22 hours to get ready to play. Q. Can you talk about that sequence where it looked like Dwight went to the line, two officials waved off the three. COACH BUZZ WILLIAMS: I want to handle it the right way. I'm really disappointed. Brokers in the back will get mad. I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed. My wife will get mad at me if I said anything because it would hurt my kid's college fund. I'm mad. I'm really upset. Really upset. Because it's not justifiably fair. And I'm glad that it happened on this stage and hope that is it will stop. End of FastScripts |
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